OK, that's a horrible headline but it is very appropriate for this post, you'll see.

A little over a week ago Google launched a new social networking tool, Google Buzz. It claims to allow users to “Share updates, photos, videos, and more. Start conversations about the things you find interesting.”

There were many security and privacy issues surrounding the initial implementation of Buzz but I did not see anyone writing about the issue I will explain here.

Buzz is “Geo-aware” in that it can include optional data about the location of a person posting to Buzz. So on the first day Buzz was launched I fired it up on the Droid and searched the map near my residence for other “Buzzers.” There was not a whole lot of activity near me but there was some. I live in a fairly small city so It didn’t surprise me that on the first day there were only three or four people using Buzz near me.

I saw a Buzz that was created just a few blocks from me by someone that I did not know. It simply read “Google Buzz is fun!” I agreed with him so I commented below and wrote “Yes, it is fun, I think I like it.” And then I went about my business.

The small, benign comment I left on that user’s Buzz was public and for all to see. And I had agreed to show my location and attach it to this Buzz. My little Buzz comment was sitting there for all to read. Cool. Harmless. All is good. At least that’s what I had thought.

Over the next few days other people made comments on that Buzz and I was notified via Gmail when those new comments were entered. After about 4 or 5 comments were made I went back to that original buzz where I saw other comments similar to mine. “Fun”, “Cool!”, “just getting the hang of it but I’ll keep trying” one user wrote.

And then I looked at the first post in the Buzz. The post that I initially commented on. The one that initially read “Google Buzz is fun!” now read “KILLING BABIES IS FUN!!” WHAT?!?!? “KILLING BABIES IS FUN!!”??? I nearly spit my mouthful of coffee out onto the computer screen.

My mind scrambled as I tried to figure out what happened. Why did I leave a comment on a Buzz about how fun it was to kill babies? Did I really respond with “Yes, it is fun, I think I like it.”? No way! I love babies. But there it was for everyone to see. My neighbors, my relatives, even the Police could now see that I was a baby killer sympathizer.

Well, I immediately deleted my comment on that Buzz. Phew OK, any damage that was done has already been done but at least going forward no one else will see my baby killing comment. Luckily this story has a happy ending but it could easily have not ended so well. I am not a prominent official or someone of any public importance so I do not have any type of public image to protect. Of course, other than what my friends, family and neighbors think of me. Imagine what this type of thing could do to someone’s career.

So what happened? Easy, the user that posted the original harmless sounding Buzz, “Google Buzz is fun!”, had gone back days later and edited his Buzz. After many people had left harmless comments about his harmless Buzz he changed the text to read “KILLING BABIES IS FUN!!” and turned all of us who commented on this Buzz into baby killer allies. Into monsters. Our comments went from harmless to harmful with the click of a mouse and no casual observer would know this.

So be careful, this scenario could play out in many different ways. And I guess it’s not limited to happening with Buzz. It could happen on any blog post or forum post as well. It’s just that this was on a map where anyone could see where I lived. I didn’t mind including my location when it was attached to the original Buzz but I sure did mind when it was attached to the edited version.

Maybe Buzz should send us an email when the original text of a Buzz has changed? Maybe they do now, who knows? But what I do know is that in the future I am going to be much more conservative as to what I will comment on in Buzz. And very, VERY conservative as to what posts/comments I am willing to share my location.

Be very cautious, it’s a new World with new dangers.

EDIT: As my friend Daryl pointed out in the comments below, Facebook got this functionality right. Users should not be able to edit a Buzz, they should only be able to delete it. Or at the very least, we should be able to view an edit history.

The new Windows Live launced yesterday and I have been playing with it a bit.

Here is my Profile on Windows Live.

Here is a picture of my Geek pumpkin from this year. It was inspired from a Geek T-Shirt that I bought from Jinx.com. Jinx Nerdcore!

And if you like it and want to carve your own, download my homemade template here….

Hope you like it! Feel free to send me a pic of your pumpkin if you use it.

NOTE: I'm pretty sure that this image is ©1999-2008 Jinx, Inc.

So in an earlier post I wrote about tweaking the Virtual Earth Screen Saver (VESS) code to allow it to see both of my monitors.

After I did that I thought that maybe the VESS developer may want my code. So I contacted him from the CodePlexVESS home page and asked if he wanted my code contribution. The lead developer's name is Keith Kinnan and he was very friendly and open to having me contribute on the project. So he made me a dev on the Virtual Earth Screen Saver project.

So far I have uploaded code to implement multi-monitor support, proxy support, conversion to VE v6, and a few other minor changes. Once Keith looks over the code he may roll what I did into a new release of the Virtual Earth Screen Saver. Very cool.

It's a very small project but being the first time I have REALLY contributed to an open source project this is probably a good thing. Just getting to communicate and quasi-work with Keith is cool. He is a heavy hitter in the Virtual Earth project.

This program is in C#. Not a language I program in daily. But being a .NET language it's not too far of a leap from VB.NET which is what I use daily.

I have leached off of and learned from open source so many times in the past that it feels real good to finally contribute on some level.

I'll post more as this project develops.

So, as seen in the previous blog post, my employer sent me 2 new 19" Dell monitors. I was very upset to see that my all time favorite screen saver did not support dual monitors.

I have been using This Virtual Earth Screen Saver. It's a screen saver using Virtual Earth APIs which reads RSS feeds to show interesting Virtual Earth birdseye and satellite images from users with information about those images.

The good news is that the Virtual Earth Screen Saver is hosted on CodePlex and the source code is available. I went and checked it out. The code is written in C# and I'm a VB.NET developer but I can usually find my way around C# just fine. I downloaded the code, figured out how to add dual monitor support and BAM! My favorite screen saver now uses both of my beautiful new monitors. Love it. I'll try and contact the Virtual Earth Screen Saver developer team to see of they want my changes.

I don't blog much but today is a good day! The FAA just sent me 2 new 19" Dell monitors. I love this set up. Watch my productivity go through the roof! It hard to tell from the photos but these things are HUGE. They take up most of my desk. Love 'em though.

www.flickr.com dugrhill's Doug's Home office photoset